


Don’t Be A DOMBÅS

by AllDaveKat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adult Troll Karkat, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, IKEA Furniture, M/M, Meet-Cute, bigkat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25922140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllDaveKat/pseuds/AllDaveKat
Summary: Dave is awoken at 3am by his new neighbor Karkat loudly and angrily trying to put together an Ikea bed. Dave knocks on the door, intending to complain, but Karkat's hotness distracts him and before he knows it he's offering to help out.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 83





	Don’t Be A DOMBÅS

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gaydino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaydino/gifts).



> Thanks to [aceAdoxography](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceAdoxography/pseuds/aceAdoxography) for providing some of the Karkat dialogue, and to [that_one_Maid_of_Space](https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_one_Maid_of_Space/pseuds/that_one_Maid_of_Space) for beta reading!

Dave loved his apartment.

He’d lived here for nearly two years, after moving out of Bro’s place the absolute second he could afford the deposit, with money scrimped and saved away from his shitty part time dishwashing job during his last year of high school. The landlord gouged him for the whole first month’s rent even though he didn’t move in til the eighteenth, which was kind of bullshit, but Dave couldn’t bring himself to care. He was just happy to be out, to finally have his own fucking place.

So maybe it wasn’t the best in terms of plumbing and electricity, and maybe there was mold growing in the shower, and his landlord never seemed to answer the phone when he had an issue. The air conditioning tended to break every couple of months, too, which was pretty fucking hellish during the height of the Houston summer. And there was only one functioning washing machine in the basement, which meant Dave either had to camp out next to it to secure his turn, or haul his shit to the nearest laundromat, which was a thirty minute bus ride each way.

Okay, honestly the place was kind of a shithole. But it was _his_ shithole, his very own place, with no roommates or guardians to deal with. He could keep his fridge stocked with whatever he wanted, go in and out as he pleased without anyone harassing him.

And aside from the occasional drunken alleyway shouting match and the sounds of city traffic that leaked in through the cracked pane in his bedroom window, it was fairly peaceful and quiet. The room next to his had been unoccupied for the majority of the time he’d lived here, and it was a big part of why he hadn’t tried to upgrade to a better apartment yet.

Which was why, when he woke up at three in the morning to loud cursing, stomping and banging of--was that a fucking hammer?!--from the other side of his bedroom wall, he was a little fucking annoyed.

He checked the time and groaned, rolling over and waiting for the interruption to pass so that he could return to his beauty sleep. But it didn’t. Half an hour passed and Dave’s ears were still being assaulted by a cacophony of loud banging, peppered with increasingly creative obscenities. Dave wasn’t sure if the walls were really that thin or if the guy was just loud as all fuck, but he could hear every word as clearly as if it was spoken directly into his ear. It sounded like his neighbor was attempting to put together some furniture, though why he was doing it at three-fucking-a.m. Dave had no goddamn clue.

“...Fucking Ikea bullshit, they can’t even include some nooksucking written instructions with this shit? You’d think if you pay two hundred fucking dollars for a human style sleeping platform, they’d at least include adequate directions for how to put the grubshitting thing together, but _no_ , all we get are pictures for wigglers! What kind of a thinkpanless douchecrumpet is in charge of this company? And another thing…”

It just went on and on for fucking ever.

Dave finally got up with a grumble, throwing on a tshirt and sweatpants over his boxers, and grabbed his shades from the bedside table. He stepped out into the hallway and walked down the hall to his charming new neighbor’s apartment, then knocked loudly on the door.

The cursing stopped, and Dave could hear the guy stomping toward the door. He was going to say something like, “Hey, asshole, why don’t you shut the fuck up, some of us have work tomorrow morning,” but when the door opened, his jaw dropped and he immediately forgot everything he’d planned to say.

The guy in the doorway was an adult troll, a good foot taller than Dave and stacked to all _hell_. He had charcoal skin and blazing red eyes, and he wasn’t wearing a fucking shirt. All he had on were a pair of gray sleep shorts that hung loosely from his hips.

“Can I fucking help you??” the troll asked, and Dave jumped slightly at the volume of his voice. Jesus, no wonder he could hear the guy so clearly through the wall, he sounded like he was talking through a fucking megaphone.

“Uh,” Dave said. “Yeah, hi, I’m Dave, I live next door to you--”

He pointed to his apartment, then stuck his hand out for a handshake.

The troll looked unimpressed, but shook Dave’s hand, his large fist swallowing up Dave’s smaller one. “Good for you. I’m Karkat. What the fuck do you want, I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

Dave laughed nervously. “Yeah, about that… Are you… do you like, need some help with whatever it is you’re building? Cause it sounded like it’s not going super well for you, and I’m sure as fuck not gonna get any sleep until you finish it up so I might as well help out and try to get the job done quicker.”

Karkat looked at Dave suspiciously, who tried very hard not to appear suspicious.

After a few tense moments, Karkat sighed and stepped back into his apartment, gesturing for Dave to come inside. “Fuck it, maybe with two idiots instead of one we’ll actually be able to get this shit done before sunrise.”

Karkat’s apartment looked almost the same inside as Dave’s, except there was a pile of cardboard boxes instead of the few meager pieces of furniture Dave had rescued from various dumpsters. He followed Karkat into the bedroom, where wooden frames and metal hinges lay scattered on the floor. A bare mattress was leaning up against the wall, but other than that the room was completely empty.

Karkat picked up a crumpled instruction booklet from the ground and handed it to Dave, their fingers bumping together. Dave’s heart pounded. There wasn’t much space in the room, and Karkat was standing so close to him, Dave could actually smell the soap on his skin.

“If you can figure this shit out, you’re a certified goddamn genius. It’s completely incomprehensible fucking gibberish to me.”

Dave’s brow furrowed ever so slightly as he looked over the booklet. That piece looked like maybe it belonged… here… and where was that part-- okay, he could do this. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he started grabbing parts and pieces, organizing them into piles.

He glanced up at Karkat. “Do you have an allen wrench?”

Karkat just stared at him blankly.

“Uh, one of those twisty L-shaped metal thingies…? It looks like we need one to screw in these hex bolts.”

“If I knew what the fuck a hex bolt was, I probably wouldn’t be in this fucking situation in the first place,” Karkat grumbled, but he started digging through the plastic baggies of supplies on the floor, then handed Dave one of the tools. “Is this what you mean?”

“Fuck yeah, I think that’ll work. Did that come with the kit? Damn, these Ikea guys think of everything.”

“Yeah, everything except for some legible fucking instructions!” Karkat’s eyebrows twitched angrily.

“It’s legible, dude, you just gotta know what you’re doing.” Dave shrugged, holding back an amused twitch of his mouth.

Privately, he was kind of enjoying this, his earlier annoyance completely dissipated. His new neighbor was hot as fuck and _still_ not wearing a shirt, thank you very much, and Dave was getting a chance to show off for him with his manly bed-building skills. Normally Dave didn’t think of himself as mechanically savvy, at least not compared to his brother, but he’d picked up a thing or two from living with the guy. Probably the only useful thing he’d ever learned from Bro.

Karkat flushed angrily, crossing his arms, and Dave watched appreciatively as the color traveled down his neck and chest. “Okay, smartass! If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn’t need the fucking instructions, now would I?!”

“Hey, don’t worry about it man, we can’t all have Strider levels of furniture construction skills.”

Karkat growled and blood rushed to Dave’s face, as well as… other parts of him. Fuck, he really needed to stop riling Karkat up, or pretty soon his sweatpants weren’t going to do a damn thing about hiding his interest.

“Why don’t you put those skills to work and actually build my fucking bed instead of standing around here talking yourself up like a jackass, then?” Karkat huffed.

Dave actually smirked at that. “Fair point, boss. Okay, help me out here, I’m gonna need you to hold this part up while I screw these legs in.”

He handed Karkat one of the frames to hold in place, and got down to business deploying his not-actually-very-impressive allen wrench skills.

With the two of them working together it didn’t take long to put the bed together. Dave rambled as he worked and Karkat interjected with sarcastic comments and rants of his own. It was oddly comfortable, and they fell into an easy rhythm. It didn’t seem like they’d only just met each other a few minutes ago.

When they finished up, Dave stood back and looked over their handiwork with satisfaction. “Hell fucking yes, that’s lookin’ like a solid motherfucking bed to me.”

Karkat frowned and held up a plastic bag of screws and bits of plastic, jangling it in Dave’s face. “Oh yeah, cool guy? Then what the fuck are these pieces doing left over? We must have done something wrong, they wouldn’t include this shit if we didn’t need to use it.”

Dave shrugged. “I dunno, dude. Just hang onto the bag and if the bed falls apart we can figure it out later, it’s no big deal.”

Karkat gaped at him. “It _is_ a big deal!! Why the fuck do they give you the pieces if they aren’t important? They’re clearly integral to the structure, you can’t just fucking throw them away!”

“Idk man, they probably just give you a few extra parts in case you lose ‘em, right? It’s fine, just fucking chill, jesus.”

Karkat lifted his arms, shaking them like he was going to throttle Dave, but settled for letting out a wordless shout at the ceiling. Dave swallowed down a giggle. Yeah, the whole apartment building was definitely awake now.

He watched Karkat push his new bed against the wall. Damn, this place was starting to look like a home already. He was actually a little jealous, Karkat’s bed was a lot fucking nicer than his. He didn’t have a bedframe or anything fancy like that, just a mattress on the floor that he’d bought for twenty bucks from a mom on Facebook. It had a light odor of stale dog piss, but Dave sprayed it with a fuck ton of axe deodorant and it smelled pretty okay now. Anyway, he didn’t need any fancy fru fru crap like bedframes or sheets or shit like that.

Karkat turned to him, his hand behind his neck. He still looked sort of grumpy, but in a cute, bashful way this time. “Hey, uh, thank you for this. And sorry about waking you up. Maybe I can make it up to you, bring a couple of beers over sometime.”

“Hell yeah, I’m always a slut for free beer.” Dave held his fist out for a bump and Karkat snorted but bumped him back obligingly. God damnit, Karkat was cute, too… Dave was so fucked. “Aight, I seriously gotta get the fuck to sleep, but knock on my door if you need help with anything else, okay?” He stifled a yawn.

The corner of Karkat’s mouth curled up in a half-smile, and Dave’s heart thudded. “Sounds good. Thanks, Dave.”

Karkat followed him to the front door and opened it for him.

Dave hesitated, then twitched his hand in an awkward salute. “Okay, well, see ya later.” With one more indulgent look at Karkat’s bare chest, he left the apartment and heard the door close behind him.

Alone in the hall, he looked up at the ceiling and mouthed to himself, “Holy shit.”

Okay, no, he wasn’t going to freak out about this. So he had a hot neighbor. So what? It wasn’t a big deal or anything. In fact, it was great, fucking fantastic, even. Dave could ogle Karkat from a distance and never actually do anything about his crush, just like he always did when he met a hot guy, and everything was going to be totally and completely fine. His stomach flipped over as he remembered Karkat’s cute fucking smile, and he told it to shut the fuck up.

He walked back to his apartment and turned the doorknob and-- it didn’t open. Dave’s stomach sank. _Fuck_ , he’d left his key inside. _And_ his phone. Not that calling his landlord would be any use at this time of night, Dave could barely get a hold of him during normal fucking business hours.

He contemplated trying to climb up the fire escape and sneak in through his bedroom window, but considering the shoddy building maintenance, the ladder would probably crumble into rust the second he stepped on it, and he was six stories up, so it wouldn’t exactly be an easy fall.

Not knowing what else to do, he turned around and walked back to Karkat’s apartment, and knocked on the door. Deja fucking vu.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @alldavekat on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alldavekat) and [tumblr](https://alldavekat.tumblr.com)
> 
> my [homestuck rp discord server](https://discord.gg/Zmq9B9R) (18+)


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